https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/walmart-prices-poverty-economy/681122/

Walmart’s many defenders argue that the company is a boon to poor and middle-class families, who save thousands of dollars every year shopping there.

Two new research papers challenge that view. Using creative new methods, they find that the costs Walmart imposes in the form of not only lower earnings but also higher unemployment in the wider community outweigh the savings it provides for shoppers.

I am shocked, shocked I tell ya.

  • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    39·
    3 days ago

    So using the full weight of Wall Street and their infinite debt derivative mechanisms to systematically gut the ever living fuck out of local communities at a loss isn’t sustainable? Well…no shit.

    Amazon is next. They ran the same racket. Sure the debt schemes can make a single family…shareholder very obscenely wealthy, but screwing with the fundementals of the market by grossly rewarding something that makes no profit is unsustainable.

    Before Walmart we had a healthy competition between stores in my town. The profits were also there in spades. It was an ample supply of jobs.we had people not only bag your groceries, but take them to your car and load them in the car too. Lots of high school kids got their start that way. Then they would spend that money going out to eat, going to the movies, saving for school, buying their 1st cars.

    Now well only Meijer and Family Fare/ Spartan remain with Walmart and you have to bag your own damned groceries and have an A.I. camera publicly accuse you of theft if your hand moves the wrong way.